The Light in Your Night – August 4, 2014

Dear Church Family,
Below you will find this week’s internet blog. I pray you will enjoy it and forward this thought on to your friends as well as offer them an invitation to church this weekend.

——–“The Light in Your Night”——–

Thoughts for Today…
If you’re like me, then you have driven past this many, many times and didn’t even notice it either. I’m talking about the big cross that you see when you are on your way towards Ozark headed down Interstate 40. Just a little ways out of the Dyer, Mulberry area on top of a large hill is this huge beautiful white cross. One of the first times I ever noticed it was when we were traveling that way during the night time. All of a sudden you turn a corner, and you see it…brightly lit, shining for everyone to see.

You know, for many of us, the greatest discovery of our lives came when it was night; one of those dark times that we all go through in our life. A lot of people have learned that when it’s night, you can see the cross, often for the first time in your life.

The cross – that awful place where Jesus was brutally crucified – turns out to be the ultimate proof of how much God loves you and me. If it’s sacrifice that proves love, then we don’t ever have to wonder how God feels about us. God the Father gave up God the Son to absorb the guilt and the hell for every wrong thing you and I have ever done. There has never been a greater sacrifice. There’s never been a greater love.

But we can know about what happened at that cross. We can be around it for years and still miss that forgiveness, that love, and the heaven that Jesus died to give us. It’s easy to go very busily about the routines of your life and never really see that cross until…it’s suddenly night time. Something happens to your health, to your family, to your job, or whatever you’ve counted on for security — and none of your answers, none of your fixes are enough. That’s when a lot of people look up and finally see the cross, shining there in the night, showing them where hope is.

In John 12:32-33 Jesus said, “‘When I am lifted up from the earth, I will draw all men to Myself.” He said this to show the kind of death He was going to die. See, that was it – lifted up to die on a cross — but there would be a magnet in that old hunk of wood; a magnet that would draw the people He died for, right to His side.

Look, maybe it’s night right now in your life, not because God doesn’t love you, but because He does. He doesn’t want to lose you. His cross shines very brightly in your night.

Once you meet Him there, the darkness is removed by His glorious light.